


One More Night

by what_is_a_social_life



Series: You and I [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bobbi and Lance are Doctor Who nerds, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, POV Multiple, Pre-Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-27 18:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6295267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_is_a_social_life/pseuds/what_is_a_social_life
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite divorcing in 2010, Lance and Bobbi just can’t get each other out of their systems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Going To War

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I don’t own the song that serves as inspiration/titles (Maroon 5) or the characters/world (Marvel).

**LANCE**

 

He recognized her laugh coming through the open door before he recognized her. Her hair was black this time and she wore gray colored contact lenses surrounded by thick, framed glasses.

Bobbi had never worn glasses, unless she was in a lab of some sort. This was, quite obviously, an undercover mission.

One that he was walking straight into.

_ Shit. _

The door to the small, dingy pub had a bell attached to it, and Bobbi had glanced up when the bell rang and the door had shut behind him. Her face had lost Mockingbird mode for a fraction of a second before she returned her attention to what had to be the mark, running a hand down his arm almost seductively.

Lance had to force himself not to punch the guy in the face.

He also had to keep reminding himself that  _ he  _ left _ her. _ He knew the path they were heading down and just sped up their arrival to the end.

(He hated himself for it every day.)

After many rounds of both drinks and avoidance, Bobbi made her way over to the bar, standing right next to him, and ordered two shots of whisky, both of which she took for herself. Lance chuckled from his spot beside her.

“What?”

“You always drink whisky when you’re stressed. At least you do if you don’t have access to your staves.”

“Why are you here, Hunter?”

“Hunter now, is it? Well then. I’ll have you know that it’s not like I knew you were going to be here! I thought you’d been re-assigned to America! This is also one of the most pathetic pubs in all of London, so I most certainly didn’t expect to walk right into an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. mission!”

“You need to leave. You’re messing up my concentration.”

“Aw, still in love with me, are you?”

“No, I can simply hear your ego from the other side of the room and it’s deafening.”

“Is there a problem?” the mark asked as he literally  _ strutted _ up to the bar.

“Not at all,” Bobbi said, adopting her standard British accent. He’d helped her refine back when they were first dating, and now he could swear up and down that she was actually British, though whether that was due to his tutelage, her living in England for so many years, or all of the above, he couldn’t tell you.

“We should go,” the mark insisted.

“Let me just close my tab,” Bobbi replied, “I’ll meet you outside.”

The mark nodded gruffly and Bobbi did as she had promised, making sure to hit Lance hard with her shoulder as she passed him.

* * *

The next day, he received a phone call from a number he didn’t recognize. He answered it quickly, being in one of those moods where he was hoping to get to tell the telemarketer on the other end to fuck off, but that was when he heard Bobbi’s voice on the other end, asking him if he wanted to get some coffee with her, since he had rejected the whole British people and tea stereotype ages ago. She was staying in her old flat in Southampton, if he was interested in meeting her there.

He didn’t want to say it but he was. He wanted to see her so badly.

“Pick you up at one?”

“In combat boots?” Bobbi teased.

“Only if you wear yours,” he replied.

“I’ll see you at one, Hunter.”

“Whatever you say, Morse.”

She hung up the phone first and he sighed, running a hand through his hair. He should not be this excited to go see his ex.

He jumped up quickly. When was the last time he or his flatmate did laundry?

“Roger!”

“Yeah?”

“When was the last time either of us did laundry?”

“How should I know? And why?”

“I’m meeting up with Bobbi!”

Roger peeked his head around the doorframe in shock and asked, “Bobbi? As in your  _ ex-wife Bobbi, _ whom you vowed to never speak to ever again?”

“The very same,” Lance replied, sniffing one of his dress shirts that he’d most likely discarded after a military banquet. “Smell this,” he added, shoving the shirt under his roommate’s nose. “Think it’ll be okay?”

“Sure?” Roger answered, batting Lance’s hand away. “I’m very confused.”

“Ex-wife, coffee, one o’clock. There, caught up.”

“I have several questions.”

“Okay.”

“How did you two get back in contact?  _ When _ did you two get back in contact? Why does it matter what your shirt smells like? Why are you looking forward to coffee, of all things, with your ex-wife? And, most importantly, why do we not have a laundry schedule like normal people?”

“She called me; ten minutes ago; smell is linked to cleanliness; no fucking idea though we both don’t drink tea; normal people don't so we don’t. That answer all your questions?”

“Yeah,” Roger said slowly. Lance could feel his flatmate’s gaze on him.

“Is there something else?”

“You left her, right?”

“Right. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing. Have fun on your coffee date.”

Lance was about to tell him it wasn’t a date, but he couldn’t say that with absolute certainty, so he decided to try and find clean underwear instead.

* * *

At exactly one o’clock, he knocked on the door of her flat. She opened the door with a smile and stepped out, locking it behind her. Her hair was still black, but she’d lost the glasses and the contacts. She wore white pants and a navy blue top that she looked so damn attractive in he’d considered taking her right then and there.

"As punctual as always," she laughed as they exited the S.H.I.E.L.D.-owned apartment building and headed out towards the docks and the main town. "I'm assuming you're still in London, based on last night?"

"I thought you would still be, too, if you were still in England. You got the flat in the divorce, after all."

"I was for a few months. I was off doing spy stuff so often when rent was due that almost all of it was late and I was almost evicted, so I just decided to relocate my stuff here. So yeah, haven't left England. I guess Izzy was trying to throw you off my scent." He gave her a sideways glance when she mentioned Izzy. He knew the two were still close, but he also knew that Bobbi still had trouble believing that Izzy had had no idea that she was helping Lance pack to leave her, not leave on deployment.

"How'd you know Izzy was my informant?"

"Because it sounds just like her to tell you I was re-assigned to Headquarters. So we’re divorced. That doesn’t mean I’m going to ask for a re-assignment.”

“Re-assignment?”

“Every year in December we have what’s called oh-so-cleverly The Re-Assign. It’s when you can ask to be stationed at a new base, put on a new team, taken off of a team, get a new partner, start a team, whatever. You can also ask for re-assignments during the other months if you’ve worked there for at least one year and/or have a Level 2 or higher security clearance. Usually, though, S.H.I.E.L.D. does all that by itself during the rest of the year, and just because you ask doesn’t mean you’ll get it.”

“Why didn’t you ask for one as soon as the papers were filed?”

“Because I’m not weak, Hunter. I knew if I ran into you again, I could handle it.” She opened the door to the coffee shop and held it open for him. “See? I’m being polite and everything.”

“Very funny, Bob,” he sighed, entering. She got them a table while he ordered, her complex coffee order still fresh in his mind like it had been just yesterday that he’d bought her some, not almost six months since he’d signed a letter and walked out their front door for the last time.

When he came back to the table with their lattes and muffins, it was easy to believe that this was one of the many coffee dates they’d had during the very early days of their relationship, when he wasn’t called in and she had somebody cover for her on base and they’d meet in this very same shop. But that was before the first ‘I love yous,’ and her move from a S.H.I.E.L.D. flat in Southampton to their shared one in London, and a white dress, and a wedding ring sitting on a table next to a letter and a ring of keys.

“Have you been seeing anyone?” she asked like they were old friends instead of exes.

“You mean, romantically?” She made a ‘duh’ face and he panicked. Was he supposed to lie to inflate his ego or tell the truth to inflate hers?

“My roommate’s sent me on some blind dates. You?”

“Not many people in England wanna date an American that’s gone 24/7 for a job they won’t explain,” she laughed.

“Well, to be fair, you did marry this specimen in front of you. No one compares to that.” Bobbi laughed again and chucked a bit of blueberry muffin at his face, which he simply scooped out of his lap and ate. "I missed this. The easy back and forth."

"I did, too.”

They sat there for hours and he drinks way more coffee than he’d had in months. The banter was easy, back and forth, but soon it was almost seven o’clock and they were the only ones left in the café.

They walked back to the S.H.I.E.L.D. flats hand in hand, her hand just as calloused yet dainty as he’d remembered. She invited him in once they got back and he didn’t make an excuse about needing to get back to his flat. He couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else.

The sex that followed was great, just like always. Even when at their most dysfunctional, sex was never something they had trouble with.

“I was lying about those blind dates. It’s mostly just been one-night stands.”

“I know. Skilled interrogator, remember?”

* * *

They lasted for two months before things went south. He knew about her PTSD, even if she wouldn’t admit that she had it. She’d come back from a mission, haunted, and she wouldn’t tell him what had happened, so he might’ve scheduled a meeting with Fury.

And when she found out, she was  _ not _ pleased.

“You had a meeting with Director Fury?”

“Of course I did, Bob! I’m worried about you! Coping by yourself isn’t  _ healthy _ .”

“I don’t need you interfering with my work, Hunter.”

“Oh, it’s  _ Hunter _ now, is it? You’ve been calling me ‘Lance’ for the past two months!”

Anger sex soon followed, but there was no gentle words of apology or make-up sex like there was once upon a time.

They were broken up by the end of the week.

During the divorce, she’d given him his ring back, saying she didn’t want to look at 

it anymore. He’d kept it in his dresser since then, not fully knowing what to do with it. 

But now he had a pretty good idea.

Which is how he wound up standing by the Thames the next morning, and he  only  _ slightly _ regretted tossing the ring in there.


	2. Out of Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Chitauri Invasion affects everything, even Bobbi and Lance's romance.

**BOBBI**

Bobbi checked her appearance one last time in the mirror. She wasn’t used to having such short hair, but she would get used to it. Deep cover was sometimes a challenge, but she loved the thrill. She looked down at her phone; she wasn’t due at base until five, and it was barely two. Maybe she would invite Izzy to go see  _ Men In Black 3 _ before her mission.

There was a knock on the door of her apartment and she paused, her phone halfway to her ear. Izzy and Clint would always just burst right in, whereas Victoria, Mack, and Nat were knock-first kind of people. Victoria was on assignment, though, and Mack had been transferred to the  _ Iliad.  _ She supposed it could be Nat, but she hadn't heard from her since she went to Russia two weeks ago.

She opened the door and was shocked to see Lance, looking almost panicked.

"What're you doing here?"

“I happened to be in the neighborhood, actually. Have you been watching the news?”

“No, why?”

He came right in and turned her television on, flicking through the channels until he found what he was looking for. It was New York, Midtown she thought, and she could see Stark Tower in the background.

What she was not expecting to see, however, were all the aliens.

She wasn’t paying attention to Lance’s words about what had been happening so far, nor was she zeroing in on the reporter’s voice, who was mentioning how lucky they were that they were there for their interview with Tony Stark. All she was thinking was _wh_ _ at the hell _ , and why S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t seem to be on sight.

“Hold up,” Lance said as the camera was zeroed in on a very distinctive figure.

“That’s  _ Clint _ !” Bobbi shouted in shock, “Which means…”

She let her eyes skim the screen until she finally found Natasha’s red hair. Bobbi nodded to herself, giving a little chuckle.

“That’s so like them. Be in the middle of important missions for who-knows-how-long and then scamper off to New York to fight aliens with Iron Man and Captain America and the Hulk and… Thor.”

“You know those people?” Lance asked, in shock. Bobbi nodded. “I mean, I know that you know Clint and Natasha, but you know the giant green monster-thing? And the bloke who looks like he just walked out of a renaissance fair? And the one who looks like a walking American flag?”

“Captain America was in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody for a little while last year. The Hulk we’ve been keeping tabs on for the past two years, and Thor we’ve encountered once, in New Mexico, so even though I don’t know any of them personally, I do know  _ of _ them.” Lance nodded.

They watched as Iron Man flew into the giant wormhole with a missile, Bobbi’s hand reaching out to grab Lance’s. Natasha had mentioned Stark once or twice as being annoying yet okay, and Natasha didn’t fight alongside people she didn’t trust. Then he fell to Earth and the Hulk caught him, and after a few minutes Stark stood up and told the camera crews that the battle was done, and that they would need some clothes for Bruce so he could change back to human form.

She lunged for her phone and called Natasha, since Clint was bound to be on the phone with Laura and the kids, who told her the whole story. She cried when she found out that Loki had controlled Clint, told Natasha that she was very angry that she wasn’t asked to help guard Laura and the kids, and ended with a stern, “I’m just glad you made it home safely,” which she made sure to shout so Clint could hear, too. There were times when Bobbi felt like she had to mom Strike Team Delta, and this was one of the biggest ones in a long time.

“Are you alright?” Lance asked after she’d hung up the phone. She shook her head and burrowed her face into his shoulder. He rubbed his hand gently up and down her arm, as if he was unsure whether or not he was supposed to be comforting her.

“I could’ve lost my best friend without watching him die. I always thought he would die falling down the stairs or something stupid like that when he’s too lazy to install one of those little electric chair things on his stairs, when he’s ancient and I’m ancient and Cooper and Lila were all grown up with their own families and everything and maybe even Nat would’ve settled down. But this would’ve been  _ so _ much worse, and not just for me.”

“I know,” he told her, “But from what I’ve seen, Clint’s too lucky to not die before he falls down the stairs.” She looked up at him through her tears, laughing the slightest bit. “I’m always gonna be here for you, Bob. I’ll even go with you to New York, if you want, since I know that that’s what you’re thinking. Or Iowa, if you’d rather go to the farm.”

She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him hard on the lips. When she finally pulled away, she was biting her lip self-consciously. She shouldn’t have done that. They were  _ divorced _ , for God’s sake, and the last time that they’d tried to get back together, it had gone down in flames.

“New lipstick?” he asked, smacking his lips.

“Yeah?”

“Strawberry not good enough for you anymore? This stuff-- what is it, kiwi?-- is disgusting.”

“Shut up and kiss me, you idiot,” she replied, crawling into his lap and pushing him back against the couch’s armrest.

* * *

“You’re thinking of leaving the military?” Bobbi asked in shock as they sat in front of Lance’s television in his apartment-- sorry,  _ flat _ , as he insisted she call it. Roger had given her an annoyed look when she’d let herself in using the spare key that Lance had given her for her birthday last week, and she’d made a mental note to never come over when he was home.

“I’m a lieutenant now. It’s a lot of responsibility!”

“That is  _ so _ like you,” she muttered under her breath, “Leave when the going gets tough.”

“No passive-aggressive divorce comments, that’s what we agreed!” She shook her head in amusement and asked, “What’re you gonna do instead?”

“I dunno. I did study economics in college.”

“You failed out of college, Lance.”

“I could go back!”

“You hated college, though,” she reminded him, “That’s why you failed out.” He shrugged a little. “What’re you thinking?”

“That you look beautiful. Really, I  _ love _ when you’re blonde. I know you like the brown-”

“No, I like the blonde, too, and not just because it’s natural that way. I feel very at home when I’m blonde.” Lance laughed a small laugh and shook his head at her. “You know, Izzy runs around with that team of mercenaries almost 24/7 now. I could give her a call, see if she wants you.”

“You would do that? For me? To spend most of my time with Isabelle Hartley? She hates my guts after what I did two years ago.”

“Most people would,” Bobbi snapped, “Sometimes I still do.”

He looked at her then with one of the most broken looks she’d ever seen him wear. It almost broke  _ her _ . They may have agreed no passive-aggressive comments, but they’d never said anything about telling each other the truth.

“I haven’t forgiven myself for doing that, you know.” She nodded; it was always written clear as day across his face whenever they were together.

She fished the pendant of the necklace that was around her neck out from underneath her shirt so he could see it, and then proceeded to take the whole necklace off. His face when he saw the pendant, her wedding ring, was eerily similar to a kicked puppy. He carefully picked it up, as if he didn’t know what to do with it. She closed his hand around it, a sign he should keep it. She already had her engagement ring locked away in a drawer in her apartment, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted both.

“But that doesn’t make it any better.”

* * *

She thought that that would be the end of them for a while, especially with him on Izzy’s merc team. According to Izzy, the life of a mercenary was suiting him just fine.

But, of course, Bobbi was not  _ that _ lucky.

Clint had dragged her to one of Stark’s charity New Year’s Eve galas while Nat was undercover God-knows-where and he couldn’t exactly reveal Laura to the Avengers like that. She had to wear a long dress-- a scarlet red one that Pepper had picked out for her-- and heels, and her hair had been arranged in an updo, and someone had even insisted she wear make-up. It reminded her too much of what she had to wear for Lance’s military banquets or undercover missions. She was starting to think that Natasha had  _ planned _ going undercover to miss this, because she hated this kind of stuff almost as much as Bobbi did.

She had had to step out to answer a call from her mother and after she’d hung up, Lance’s voice said at her shoulder, “Fancy seeing you here.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Relax, love. My hotel’s across the street; I’m not at the party.”

Bobbi let out a breath and tried to ignore the sadness trying to break its way out into the open.

“What brings you to New York?” she asked.

“Life of a merc brings you all over the world. Undercover or Avengers?”

“Avengers. Clint dragged me.”

“Well you look beautiful.”

She blushed.

There were excited shouts all around and the countdown began. Bobbi and Lance both turned towards Time Square and the ball that was dropping down.

“Five!”

She looked at Lance out of the corner of her eye.

“Four!”

She took a step closer to him.

“Three!”

She grabbed his hand.

“Two!”

His gaze caught hers.

“One!”

They kissed.


	3. There You Go Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2013: Matt Smith leaves Doctor Who, Thor returns to earth, and Bobbi and Lance ride the roller coaster again... sort of.

**LANCE**

He hadn’t made her a contact yet, but he’d come to recognize the number currently illuminating his mobile as hers.

“Hello?”

“Are you alright? Izzy called me and-”

“I’m fine, Bob,” he promised, “Just a flesh wound.”

“She said you had to have _surgery_ , Hunter.”

“Okay, so maybe it _wasn’t_ just a flesh wound, but really, you don’t need to worry about me, love.” He was terrified she was going to call him out on the whole ‘love’ thing, but she said nothing on the subject.

“That won’t stop me from doing just that, and you know it.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Just don’t die out there, alright?”

“I won’t. I promise.”

He could almost see her nod before her side of the line went dead.

* * *

 After a mission, he was relaxing in his hotel room when his phone started to ring.

“Hello?”

“It’s Bobbi. Matt Smith’s leaving.”

Lance sat up straight.

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish. After the Christmas special.”

“So. Number 12, huh?”

“Only the fourth for New Who.”

“True, true. Who do you want it to be?”

“I don’t know. I’m just excited to see what they do with the next one.”

“Is Clara staying on?”

“I think so. She wouldn’t be the first.”

“True, true.”

“Stop saying that.”

“Alright, alright! So how’ve you been?”

“Good. Where are you right now?”

“Amsterdam. Doing what, that’s classified.”

“You’re simply _hilarious_.”

“What about you? S.H.I.E.L.D. seems to have gotten quiet.”

“We’ve gotten quiet to _you_. We’re still in clean-up mode from the Battle of New York. Well, not so much clean-up mode as damage control. We’ve even built a new branch to handle everything.”

“An Avengers branch?”

“Basically. Fury, Hill, Nat, Clint, and Captain Rogers, with the last three being Avengers. Except Laura’s been pretty sick so Clint’s been MIA a lot. And Nat keeps trying to set Steve up with someone.”

“She should set him up with Vic.”

“Hilarious,” Bobbi said dryly. “Although, his face would be pretty damn hilarious when he found out.”

Lance started laughing, and pretty quickly Bobbi was joining in. The two of them laughed together for a good five minutes before it slowly died away.

“You didn’t answer my question. What’re you up to?”

“Um, I’m in Europe. I think that’s all I can say.”

“Wanna get more specific?”

“You’re not getting state secrets out of me, Hunter.”

“Oh, I know that. Getting state secrets out of someone? That’s always been your thing.”

Bobbi gave a small little laugh, and he wondered if she, too, was going to back to that night in the Outer Banks, when she’d all-but kidnapped him and they’d spent most of her interrogation flirting. He’d given her that intel, way back when, along with his number, and it was something he’d never regretted for a second, not even when they’d been at each other’s throats during the last year and a half of their marriage, not even when he decided to leave her, not even during every bitter breakup between the two of them since then. He would never regret approaching her that very first day at the Outer Banks, with the moonlight glinting off of her hair, and he would never regret asking her to marry him, no matter how badly it ended.

“Bobs?”

“Yeah?”

“Any chance you could make it to Amsterdam for a day or two?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

They met up at a café, like they almost always did, two days later. Izzy had gone back to S.H.I.E.L.D. for a debrief and then some other missions and Idaho was acting as leader. The team had gone to Budapest for the next assignment and would wait for him there, as it wasn’t overly time sensitive, according to the employer.

She looked more guarded than he’d ever seen her.

They sat down together and were silent, but it was not a comfortable silence. He knew that she had something to say; he could tell by her expression. But it didn’t seem like she would say it any time soon.

“Bobs, really. Come out with it.”

“I’ve started seeing someone,” she replied.

Well. He wasn’t expecting that.

“I didn’t mention it over the last call because that’s not something you say over the phone or in a text. And we didn’t even start calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend until last night.”

“Hey,” he told her, gripping her hand tightly, “It doesn’t matter to me whether we’re lovers or best friends. I just need you in my life in some capacity.”

She glanced up at him through her long eyelashes and it looked like there were tears in her eyes. He hated seeing her cry, even though she rarely did, not even during battles with PTSD. The last time he’d seen her cry was over a year ago, when she’d talked with Natasha right after the Battle of New York. She rarely ever let her guard down enough to let herself be hurt.

But it always seemed to be down around him.

* * *

And even though they both wanted to be “just friends,” it wasn’t that easy. Being separated for weeks at a time made friendships hard, and relationships even harder.

By the end of summer, Bobbi and Tyler had broken up on mostly friendly terms, which is more than he and Bobbi could say for any of their break-ups, which almost always ended in screaming matches followed by anger sex and one of them slamming a door shut. Break-ups, that is. Their divorce was a category all its own, and it was still a sore topic three years later.

Bobbi and Roger had formed some weird friendship that Lance didn’t understand while he’d been off doing his own thing and she’d still been in London, and so Bobbi had come over to help load Roger’s stuff into the moving van when he decided to move in with his girlfriend. She came over wearing her _Star Wars_ T-shirt and jeans and no, they most definitely did _not_ screw in the bathroom of the store they were in when they went to bring back lunch.

* * *

They both happened to be in London when Thor returned and wrecked havoc at the University of Greenwich. As soon as he’d heard about what was happening, he’d had his phone out and her number dialed. He still hadn’t given her a contact on his phone yet, but her number was one of the few he could recite from memory. He couldn’t tell you his address, but he knew Bobbi’s phone number like he knew the back of his hand.

She hadn’t picked up right away, which only intensified his panic. He knew that Bobbi had started taking some courses at the university to get the master’s in biology she had planned to get after sixth form, but choosing S.H.I.E.L.D. had made it a bit difficult. She was in and very excited to be, since she’d focused on her bachelor’s after graduating from the Academy but hadn’t done anything towards her master’s since completing that original program in 2010.

While she excelled in the field, science had been her first love, long before gymnastics or the first crush she ever had. She’d once confessed to him that it had been her dream since she started at S.H.I.E.L.D. all those years ago to retire from field work in her thirties or forties, get her doctorate in either biology or biochemistry, and then become a S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist, preferably at the Sandbox, or maybe even teach at the Academy. And now it was finally starting to shape into a reality. He was beyond proud of her.

He could still remember every detail about that night, so early in their relationship, while she was still going for her bachelor’s, when they’d sat on his couch in the firelight and talked about anything and everything. He could still see the excitement in her eyes, made more mysterious by the reflection that the flames cast on them. Her hair was a chestnut color back then, and it, too, had been given a somewhat eerie glow as the firelight had hit her. She’d been beautiful, though considering her arm had been in a sling and she was hyped up on medication to relieve the pain, she probably wouldn’t agree with him. And not just because she so hated having brown hair.

It wasn’t until his third try that she finally picked up the phone and he breathed a sigh of utter relief. He couldn’t lose her, not today. He would never be able to lose her. She was a part of him as much as he was a part of her. Across time and space, he and Bobbi had been a part of each other’s lives in some way, that was something he was sure of. He’d even said it in his wedding vows and had spun some _Doctor Who_ into it.

But after they’d hung up the phone with the promise to meet up for coffee, he began to wonder: In how many universes were they together forever, and was this one one of them?


	4. Cross My Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bobbi's world crashes down when HYDRA re-emerges.

**BOBBI**

“Lance Hunter. You know what to do.”

The answering machine beeped and Bobbi took a rattling breath before saying, “Hi, Hunter. It’s Bobbi. I know we’re not really speaking to each other right now but HYDRA took over. They’ve been inside us for decades, and we never knew. Izzy and Victoria and Mack and Clint and Nat and I are all on the S.H.I.E.L.D. side, if you’re wondering. You’re probably not and I don’t even know why I’m making this call because you’ll probably just delete this message without listening to it, anyways, if evidenced by the other messages I’ve left in the past few months that have gotten no reply.” She paused.

“I gave Izzy my keychain to give to you. I thought I was going to die but I knew somehow, even if Izzy had died, too, it would get to you. You know the one. The one from Franny’s? I know it should probably go to my parents if I die, but I want you to have it. To keep me with you. Because I know I’m not supposed to but I really do miss you, Lance. I-”

She hung up the phone before she could allow herself to say another word.

* * *

He did respond after confessing that Idaho had heard her message and had relayed the information to Lance. He came to London to spend time with her, and it was a struggle balancing this with being part of Gonzales's S.H.I.E.L.D. faction, but she tried.

But he knew she was hiding something and walked out on her. Like always.

So she called him out on it. It resulted in a 2 AM phone conversation from opposite sides of the same city, and yeah, maybe they were both a little drunk, but it was one of the first productive conversations she felt like they'd had in awhile.

“I have tried so hard to be the man I think you deserve,” Lance said after a lull in the conversation, and she could hear the sadness and pain-- and alcohol-- in his voice.

“And I want nothing more than for you to find that perfect girl,” she agreed.

“Oh, Bobbi,” he sighed, “ _ You _ are that perfect girl.”

“And you’re the man I want to think that I belong with,” she said honestly, leaning her head back against the wall. “Why can we never make this work? We both try so hard and it always just crumbles to pieces.”

“Maybe that’s it. Maybe we’re just trying to hard. Let’s face it, we’re not the most conventional love story.”

“I most definitely agree with that.”

“I hope to see you again soon, Bobs.”

“I hope to see you again, too, Hunter.”

(They do. Their relationship lasted for two weeks before  _ she _ walked out on  _ him _ this time, though considering Gonzales was putting her undercover in Coulson’s faction, she felt like she had a good reason.)

* * *

"Sir? I would like permission to bring in two of the mercenaries I've been undercover with,” Izzy told Coulson. He looked at her, waiting for her to continue. "Lance Hunter and Gabriel McKinney; everyone just calls Gabriel 'Idaho,' though."

"I don't know-"

"I can vouch for Hunter, sir. He was in the SAS and reached the rank of lieutenant by the time he was thirty," Bobbi interrupted. Izzy nodded in agreement.

"Is this the same Lance Hunter that is listed as your ex-husband in your S.H.I.E.L.D. file?"

“Yes, it is. But I will vouch for him, one hundred times over.”

Coulson nodded slowly.

“Try and bring them in.”

“Sir? I would like to volunteer to accompany Simmons undercover,” Bobbi said. “Hunter won’t come if I’m here, and I have plenty of experience under deep cover. I helped facilitate the take down of the Red Room in 2008 by going in under deep cover, and I was considered to accompany Agent Romanoff to Stark Industries. You know me, sir. Romanoff and Barton trained me well, and you know it.”

“I do. I’ll have Skye start working on your backstory, Agent Morse.”

“Thank you, sir. And you won’t regret bringing in Hunter; I swear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read, left kudos, subscribed, and/or bookmarked this story!


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